Yahoo News Horse racing conman stole £200,000 from punters then posed as private detective to fleece them again
A horse racing conman who stole more than £2000,000 from punters in an elaborate betting scam has been jailed for almost six years.
Christopher Beek, 36, from Blackpool, Lancashire, ripped off his victims then posed as a private detective, charging them a fee whilst pretending to help them get their money back.
He had pleaded guilty to charges of fraud at Warwick Crown Court and was jailed on Monday for five years and ten months.
Been used a string of false identities to carry out the scam over a three-year period through his company, Kachina Racing.
The court heard he made up a “bewildering cast of fictitious persons” to fleece gamblers out of thousands of pounds.
He pocketed a total of £204,000 through a series of elaborate scams including gambling syndicates and shares in racehorses.
Beek even made payments to victims to keep them hooked and posed as a private detective supposedly to help them get their money back – but charged them a fee.
He also pretended to be sports betting expert to reel in his victims.
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Beek, who used to work for ex-footballer and racehorse trainer Mick Channon, began his fraud after he sold 20 race horses for “a pittance”.
He then tricked four victims into investing thousands of pounds in betting schemes with “guaranteed returns” over a three-year period.
Beek was caught after one suspicious victim reported him even after the conman made threats of IRA links in a bid to stop him going to police.
Sentencing, Judge Andrew Lockhart said: “The schemes were broadly fictitious. You lost money, and you simply asked for more. It was a three-year sophisticated fraud. The web of lies has been hard to unravel.
“There was a bewildering cast of fictitious persons, betting systems, internet accounts, and then using your own name and six other names, you wove a web of deception.”
The court was told one victim was a farmer who lost £129,000 as a result of the scam.
Drawn in through a Kachina Racing flyer, the farmer was persuaded to hand over an initial £15,000 for a betting investment club with supposedly guaranteed profits.
Beek, using other identities, also conned the farmer into investing large sums of money in systems using automated betting programmes.
He then killed off the person supposedly behind that scheme and created a man called Michael Taylor who offered to help the farmer recover his money – for a fee.
And he then became “successful gambler” Phil Clark, with whom the farmer was tricked into investing more money.
The farmer was eventually able to speak to fictitious tipster ‘Alan Nugent,’ with whom he had invested £10,000.
But he recognised the voice as that of Beek – who made threats of IRA links to try to stop him going to the police.
